


Persona: Path of Discovery

by MYuzuki



Category: Persona 2, Persona Series
Genre: Canon Continuation, Canon compliant (more or less), Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual freeing P3 protagonist(s) from the Seal, F/M, Gang Violence (backstory), Gen, Gen Fic, OC, Original Character(s), Other, Persona 2 - Freeform, Trust Issues, Weekly Updates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-04 14:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/395010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MYuzuki/pseuds/MYuzuki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riko is tasked with finding Tatsuya and his old friends in order to return their memories to them, now that enough time has passed so that it poses no danger to the world. But that's only the beginning. A new threat has emerged, and Riko must join in an epic fight to save mankind, while fighting her own personal demons along the way. [ON TEMPORARY HIATUS].</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. {It All Started With A List}

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, one and all, to Persona: Path of Discovery. This was originally the first story I ever posted on Archive. I feel so nostalgic, coming back. :)
> 
> In any case, I've decided to go back over this story and spruce it up a bit. I've improved a bit as a writer since I first began working on it, plus some aspects of the story itself have been expanded or re-worked in my head, making it necessary to adjust some things in the chapters I've already posted. Basically, the main story is the same, more or less, but I'll be re-posting the chapters, in all their updated/improved glory (thankfully, I had only posted two chapters originally, so past that point you won't have a sub-par version to compare the revised story to. XD).
> 
> In any case, for most of my stories in general, there’s usually a huge author’s note that’s basically me musing on how I got started on this story and what it’s likely going to involve (anyone who's read anything of mine knows this to be true XD). Since having it at the start puts some people off, I’ve moved it to the ending author’s note. You’re still entirely welcome to ignore it if you like, but I like to hear what you guys think about my ideas, so…yeah. This first chapter’s a little on the short side, but it’s sort of justified in that it is the first chapter; in other words, we’re just getting started. ;)
> 
> Also, (and this is entirely random) you can have such a long summary here compared to ff.net! It's amazing! :D I'm going to have to work on making a better/longer summary now. :D
> 
> Anyhow, review or something when you’re done, please. :D

Riko stared into her coffee cup, flashes of her dreams drifting into her mind’s eye.

‘ _Welcome to the Velvet Room. My name is Igor.’_

She took a sip of her coffee and shuddered. It seemed she’d been just sitting there for too long; it was lukewarm. She stood up and popped it into the microwave, hitting the beverage button.

‘ _I apologize for the suddenness of your arrival here, but we have a task for you.’_

‘… _ **We?’**_

‘ _Regrettably, my assistants could not be here to meet you. My last assistant is on a journey of her own at the moment, and my current assistant is out on another matter…Philemon, of course, is watching over everything.’_

The microwave beeped, letting her known it was done re-heating her coffee. She reached in and grabbed her mug by the handle, absently noticing that steam was now coming off the pale brown beverage.

‘ _ **I have no idea what you’re talking about. Where am I?’**_

‘ _As I said, you are in the Velvet Room. And I’m afraid there is very little time to explain things; soon I shall have another new guest, and much of my time will need to be dedicated to him. So I must hurry and explain to you your task.’_

‘… _ **Task?’**_

She sipped her coffee, wincing as it scalded her tongue. She’d been plagued by dreams of her first trip to the Velvet Room for almost a full week, ever since it had happened.

It had been extremely sudden. One minute she had been walking across an abandoned school campus in an effort to get to work earlier (she’d been running late that day, she remembered; the bus line she normally took had been canceled for some reason). The next thing she knew something resembling a black monster of goo had emerged from one of the old buildings and attacked her.

Shadows, Igor had called them. There were different types, apparently, which all came from somewhere different, though recently they seemed to embody the shadows in people’s hearts.

She’d have been killed, he’d told her, if she hadn’t awoken what he called her ‘Persona’.

Her last thought before the Shadow lunged at her had been ‘I want to live’. According to Igor, the stress of the situation had caused her Persona to manifest.

Sarasvati, her Persona had called itself. It had the appearance of a woman in green, holding some sort of string instrument. Igor had told her that her Persona was a manifestation of an aspect of her psyche. She’d told him that she had absolutely no idea what the hell he was talking about, and he’d told her patiently that she’d understand better once more time passed.

Her phone beeped, looking lonely by itself on the cold ceramic kitchen counter. She picked it up and saw a message from the owner of the maid café where she worked, confirming that she didn’t have to come into work for the next two days.

Normally she wouldn’t dare take any time off; her apartment’s rent was a bit on the steep side. But the task Igor had given her was very important.

‘ _You must find them, and return their memories to them. It is imperative that you accomplish this within three months’ time. If you do not…’_

“We’re all screwed,” she said out loud, snapping her phone shut. Igor hadn’t told her what exactly would happen if she failed, but she’d gotten a distinct ‘we’ll all be doomed’ vibe from him.

“So….find Tatsuya Suou and his old friends, huh?” She took another sip of coffee and then dumped the rest of it down the drain; she was more than awake enough already. “Give them their memories back…Easier said than done, I bet.” She sighed, tucked her phone into her pocket and slipped on her jacket. “I guess I’ll have to start with whoever does still remember what actually happened.” She pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket. On it was a neatly written list of seemingly random names. “Let’s see, first is…Ulala Serizawa, huh? What a weird name...Well, let’s go see what I can find out.”

Over two hours later, she was sitting in a public library, working on her laptop. Her apartment building was in a wi-fi dead-zone so anything requiring internet meant she had to go to the nearest place with free access. In this case the library, since the only place closer was a little diner that only let paying customers use their internet. Being completely without an appetite, she'd opted for the library, which was better for working anyway. She’d spent the first hour scouring as many listings as possible for whoever Ulala Serizawa was. And had discovered after her nineteenth dead-ended search that this person wasn’t listed in any public people listings.

“Would it have been so hard just to tell me where to find these people?” she muttered, feeling vaguely irritated towards Igor. He’d given her the list of names to help her track down the four key players she was supposed to find but hadn’t told her where to find them, or even what gender each person was. Just that the people on the upper part of the list probably knew where to find the people at the bottom of the list, the bottom consisting of the four whose memories were missing. The main four were the top priority, but Igor had made it pretty clear that finding the others was important too. Unfortunately, it had been over a week and she was in no way closer to finding _any_ of them than she had been at the very start of this weirdness. “Wonderful…” She tapped the keys absently. _What now?_

She opened a new search engine and tried yet another search, widening the parameters and adjusting the search filters. Nothing.

She slammed her hand down on the table, earning her a severe glare from a business man at a nearby work station.

She ignored him, and instead decided to run a search for local private detectives. You could hire them to find someone for you, right? She didn’t exactly have a lot of money to spare, but it _was_ sort of an emergency, after all.

She finally found a P.I. she felt comfortable asking for help (after doing about a dozen cross checks and reading as many client reports that she could find). A man named Shun Wakahisa, who seemed to be in his early twenties, judging from the picture on his website. She wrote down his phone number and then closed her laptop, slipping it back into her old purple backpack. She smiled brightly at the business man and gave a cheekily chipper little wave before leaving the library.

Once outside, she pulled out her phone and dialed the number, impatiently listening to it ring as she strode down the sidewalk.

“This is Shun Wakahisa speaking. How may I help you?”

“Wakahisa-san, I was wondering if you could help me with something.”

The voice on the other end of the call sounded tired. “And what exactly is it you need help with?”

“I need to find someone,” she answered, stopping for a moment to wait for the traffic to clear so she could cross the street. “What’s your going rate? The website didn’t say.”

“Come by my office,” was his response. “We can go over what you have in mind and I can calculate how much it could cost.”

“What’s the address?”

He told her, she wrote it on her hand, thanked him, and then hung up.

Now she just had to find where exactly this address was. She sighed, and turned around and walked back to the library.

_If this is any sign of how this entire search is going to go, then Igor totally chose the wrong person for the job._

She had almost made it back to the library when suddenly everything froze. The people, the cars, the little dog who’d escaped his leash and was chasing pigeons. They all froze, as if someone had pressed pause on a movie.

_Oh, great. Just what I need._ She spun around, eyes looking for what she knew was lurking somewhere nearby. 

The freezing of time was caused by the Shadows, Igor had told her. It was similar to something he’d called the Dark Hour, except in this case there was the absence of what he called Tartarus and no one ‘transmogrified’, whatever the hell that meant. Everything just froze. Except for people with the Potential. In other words, Persona users.

As far as she knew, she was the only Persona user for miles.

_Hooray for me_ , she thought dryly, still scanning for the Shadow that was sure to be close. Then something resembling a hunk of tar shaped into a wolfish form lunged at her from behind a frozen-in-time garbage truck. 

She ducked, and then spun around again as it landed behind her, long claws clicking on the pavement.

It snarled at her, and she tensed.

It lunged at her again, and she took a step back, clapping her hands together with a slap. “Sarasvati!”

Her Persona appeared. “Bufula!” she shouted, and Sarasvati obeyed, using magic and slamming a large chunk of ice down on the Shadow. It struggled to get up afterwards, seeming dazed.

She clapped her hands once more. “Again,” she told her Persona when it appeared for a second time. “Bufula.” She didn’t really need to say the attacks out loud, just like she probably didn’t need to clap her hands together. But the clapping helped her focus, and as for the calling of attacks…no one was around to hear her sounding like a Pokemon trainer, so what difference did it make?

The Shadow disintegrated after the second ice attack, and after a moment time returned to normal.

She calmly hitched her backpack straps further up on her shoulders and kept walking, as if nothing had happened.

 


	2. {Sudden Company}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The long-awaited revised Chapter 2 is here! Enjoy! (And review. XD)

Shun Wakahisa, Riko realized after talking to him for about ten minutes, was a hard guy to characterize at first glance. Her first impression of him was that he was an exceptionally disillusioned individual. And yet he was willing to work pro bono, which she found contradictory. His stated reason basically amounted to ‘you won’t pay me anyway, so I might as well just start off knowing that I’m working for nothing. Saves me the trouble of being disappointed later on’. She’d opened her mouth to object, but he’d just given her a look and she’d decided to let it go. His attitude was all the more confusing because he looked to only be a couple years older than she was; normally people in their age range were a lot more easy-going. She briefly wondered if his attitude was an act, a front to seem more adult or businesslike or something, but then she dismissed it as being totally not her problem. She needed this guy's help to find Serizawa. As soon as they worked that out, she'd be on her way and would more than likely never see him ever again.

“So, Riko-san,” he said, “you said you’re looking for someone?”

She nodded, sitting down in the chair in front of his desk. “I need to find this person, immediately.”

“A relative?”

“No.”

“Friend?”

“No.”

“Friend of a friend?”

“No.”

He gave her an inscrutable look. “Why are you looking for this person, if you don’t know them personally?”

She hesitated, then shrugged. “Sorry, but I can’t explain. And you wouldn’t believe me if I tried. Just know that it’s extremely important. I need to find this person,” she repeated insistently.

“You keep saying ‘this person’…Is it a he or a she?”

She flushed. “I don’t know.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Her blush deepened. “I don’t know whether it’s a man or a woman. I only have the name.”

He _tsk_ ed disapprovingly. “That’s not very helpful.”

She crossed her arms and glared at him. “If I knew who I was looking for, I wouldn’t be here asking for your help.”

He sighed gustily. “I suppose that’s true.” He flipped open a notebook. “What’s the name?”

“Ulala Serizawa.”

“Ulala?” he repeated in disbelief.

She shrugged. “Don’t look at me.”

“Well, it’s not a common name, so that should help, I guess.”

“Thank you for doing this,” she said sincerely.

 

He glanced at her. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

She shrugged. “But you will, and I’m grateful.”

He shook his head, but said nothing. 

She left not long after that, with Shun’s assurance that he’d call her once he found something. She’d thanked him again, and left the office. She’d considered giving him the other names on the list, but had decided against it. It would have brought up altogether too many questions, none of which she could answer without seeming insane. And it probably wouldn’t have helped in any case.

She pulled out the sheet of paper and scanned it. Igor had admitted to leaving off some information, notably the last names of the main four on her list. Which left her with very little to go on, really.

 

_Ulala Serizawa_

_Baofu_

_Katsuya Suou_

_*Eikichi_

_*Lisa_

_*Jun_

_*Tatsuya_

_Maya Amano_

 

She had no idea if Baofu was another first name, or if it were a last name, or even an alias; after all, it meant ‘revenge’ in Mandarin, so if someone wanted to disappear and change their identity for a payback motive, the name would fit.

She scanned down the rest of the list, skipping over the main four. For whatever reason, her focus landed on the last name, Maya Amano.

_At least I can be sure this one’s a girl_ , she thought. She’d never heard of a boy named Maya. She just couldn’t decide if she wanted to go back to the library for another online people-search or just go home for the day; she’d left her apartment at seven in the morning and it was almost four in the afternoon; she’d been at it for almost nine hours now. 

She kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk and sent it skittering down the pavement. Nine hours she’d spent searching for Ulala Serizawa, with nothing to show for it. _I wouldn’t have expected people-finding to be this hard._

Suddenly the bouncing pebble stopped midair. She stared at it, then looked up and down the street. The cars had stopped, as had the cyclist who been pedaling furiously just moments before.

“I need to invest in an actual weapon at some point,” she mused, looking around for Shadows. “Just using Sara all the time isn’t a good idea…” she added, using her nickname for her Persona. She spotted two Shadows, black wolf-like creatures like before. Dark Hounds, she called them. One circled behind her while the other prowled straight towards her.

She clapped her hands together. “Sarasvati!”

Her Persona appeared. “Mabufu,” she ordered, sending her Persona to attack both enemies at once. Her Persona obeyed, shattering ice upon both Dark Hounds. She repeated this twice more before the Hounds disintegrated, defeated.

She watched as time restarted and everything moved on as if nothing had happened. She watched as the cars drove by, their occupants unaware. The cyclist zoomed by, equally unaffected.

She felt very alone in that moment, watching the bustling people around her continue their lives, focused on whatever mundane tasks they thought were important.

_All of these people…They have no idea what’s really going on._ She shivered, and zipped up her jacket, even though her shivers came from the chill of loneliness, and not the chill of the air.

 

* * *

 

 

Shun Wakahisa sat behind his desk. It had been almost two hours since the girl called Riko had left. He’d been working almost nonstop since she left, except for a moment when his computer had frozen, not long after the girl had gone. For the second time that day, in fact. He wondered if he should buy a new computer. One that periodically froze up for no apparent reason wasn’t the most effective for his work.

Shaking his head, he reviewed his notes. He’d managed to find Ulala Serizawa after all, despite the total lack of information he'd had to work with. The person in question was a woman in her 30’s, with strange hair and strange attire. She was living in an area of the city that was a half hour train ride away. He picked up his phone.

“This is Riko,” the voice on the other end said.

“Good evening, Riko-san. I’m sorry to disturb you so late, but I’ve found Serizawa-san.”

“Oh.” He heard her surprise through the phone. “That was fast.”

“I’m very good at what I do.” Anyone who didn't know him might have said such a statement was bragging, but it was just the simple truth; a similar truth was that his job was more or less the only thing he _was_ good at, at least from his own perspective.

There was a moment of silence, and then “So, who is it?”

“A woman in her thirties who lives and works over in the Yashu District.”

Her tone of voice indicated that she was not thrilled with this bit of information. “That’s across the city.”

“It is,” he agreed.

“Is there any way you can call her, and ask her to come here?”

“Riko-san?”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t know this person, correct?”

“…Right.”

“So would it not seem strange for me to call Serizawa-san, tell her there is a Riko-san who wants to speak with her, and ask her to come here, with no proper explanation for why?”

“……You have a point.”

“Yes, I know.”

“What did you have in mind then? I can’t afford the train fare,” she added.

“I’ll pay for you,” he said, the words tumbling from his mouth with absolutely no forethought whatsoever.

“What?” came the incredulous answer.

“I like to see my cases through to the end,” he informed her. And it was technically the truth, in general. “So I’ll be accompanying you. I’m not exactly rich either, but I can afford to pay for your train fare as well as mine.”

“Thank you.” 

He snorted. “Again with the thanks. I’m not doing anything impressive.”

“I disagree,” the quiet voice answered seriously. “This is extremely important, and I’m incredibly grateful.”

He could hear the sincerity in her voice, and it made him feel awkward. Gratitude always did. “It’s nothing. Look, when are you free to go Yashu?”

“I don’t have work tomorrow. Is tomorrow okay for you?”

“Tomorrow is fine,” he answered, while at the same time wondering what the girl’s job was. She looked to be around eighteen or nineteen; she could very well still be in school. Not that he was in any position to judge a person’s age; he was only twenty-two, at least ten years younger than any other private detective in the city. For all he knew the girl could be a prodigy of some sort and had graduated early, or simply looked younger than her actual age.

He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. “Meet me here at the office at eight a.m. We can walk to the station from here.”

“Okay,” Riko agreed. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Wait a moment,” he said before she could hang up.

“…Yes?”

“You never told me your last name.”

“No. No, I didn’t.”

 

* * *

 

Riko snapped her phone shut before Shun could say anything else. She was glad he was helping her, but the last thing she needed was him knowing her full name and investigating her. Because if he found her records, the odds were he’d stop helping her. It didn’t matter that the records didn’t reflect even a fraction of the whole story. What was written there was taken as the truth by those who read it, and she couldn’t afford to lose Shun’s help at this point; she needed to find Tatsuya and the others as soon as possible. He knew where exactly Serizawa was and she didn’t, and Serizawa was the only link she currently had to Tatsuya.

She leaned back in her chair, and glanced at her reflection in the vanity mirror. Pale green eyes stared back at her, and her black hair was in a shaggy disheveled pixie cut, nothing like the long braid she used to wear down her back.

Her phone beeped suddenly. She flipped it open, and saw an automatic service message from her cell company telling her that the cost of her bill had been automatically withdrawn from her bank account.

She deleted the message and closed her phone.

 

* * *

 

Riko tapped her foot as she rang the doorbell to Shun’s office. She’d tried the door, but it was locked. She rang the doorbell again, impatient.

“Hello? Wakahisa-san?” She jabbed the button again. “Hello?”

“Knock it off!” came an irritated voice from inside, muffled by the door.

She pressed the buzzer one more time and then took a step back, crossing her arms.

The door opened, and Shun emerged, looking decidedly sleepy and disheveled. Unlike the previous day when he’d been wearing a simple white dress shirt and slacks, today he was in a blue turtleneck and jeans, and his hair was sticking up in all directions. He looked like an exhausted college student.

She arched an eyebrow. “Did I wake you?”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “Sorry. My alarm didn’t go off.”

She tilted her head. “We can put this off if you like.” Well, actually she couldn’t afford to wait, but she felt an odd tug at her heart seeing the young private detective looking the way he did. “Are you okay, Wakahisa-san?”

He nodded jerkily. “I’m fine. And you can just call me Shun if you want; 'Wakahisa-san' always makes me feel like someone's talking to my uncle or my father, not me.”

“Alright then...Shun. Are you really okay? You look kinda beat.”

He gave another quick nod. “I'll be alright. I was just up late working another case for a friend of mine. Just let me grab my wallet and we can go.”

She nodded. “Okay." 

He came back a moment later, his wallet in hand and his hair looking a little more tidy. “Shall we?”

She smiled. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

“So…” Shun said after they’d walked halfway to the train station in silence, “how old are you?”

She blinked, surprised. Of all the things for him to ask, that question had not crossed hr mind. “How old do I look?”

“Seventeen, eighteen?”

“I’m nineteen,” she answered.

“Ah, so you have graduated high school, then.”

“Ehhh…Not exactly.”

He looked over at her. “What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?”

“I dropped out in my senior year,” she said honestly.

“Why?”

The answer to _that_ question strayed into dangerous territory, and she bristled without quite meaning to. “Some stuff happened, alright? That’s all you need to know.”

He frowned, but let it go, obviously sensing that it was a sensitive topic.

“How old are you?” Riko asked suddenly, not sure where the impulse to ask had come from, but figuring what the hell, why not.

“Twenty-two.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just that you look…you know, good.”

“Good?” he repeated, confused.

“You know. Hot, sexy, handsome.” She shrugged, and then blushed slightly. “Not that I care,” she added hastily. “It’s just an observation.” She had neither the time nor the inclination to date anyone. Even if she did she’d have to find someone who was either okay with their girlfriend running off to fight monsters or someone who also had the Potential. Both situations were extremely unlikely.

“So….do you have a job?” Shun asked after a slightly awkward silence.

“Uh, yeah. I work at a café.”

“Which café?”

“Kiki’s.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that a maid café?”

She flushed again. “Yeah. What of it?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. You just don’t seem like the type to work at a café like that.”

She shrugged, blush subsiding. “I know the owner. After I dropped out of school I needed a job, so she hired me.”

“Nice of her.”

“Mm.” She bit her lip. “Look, why are you asking me all of this? I didn’t hire you to research _me_.”

“Technically you didn’t hire me at all,” he pointed out. “I volunteered, remember? Pro bono.”

“And I said that I can pay you! Maybe not all at once, but eventually I’ll have enough money to cover--”

Suddenly everything stopped moving, except her.

 

And oddly enough, Shun Wakahisa.

 

She stared at him. “You’re still moving.”

He glanced at her, as if she’d lost her mind. “Yeah?” Then he noticed that the rest of the world seemed to have frozen in place. “…What the hell?”

She looked at him as if he were an alien. “You’re still moving,” she repeated.

“Why has everything else stopped?!” he demanded, spinning around. “What the hell’s going on?”

“…I don’t believe it…” she laughed weakly, covering her eyes with a hand. “ _You_ have the Potential?”

“What are you talking about?!” Shun asked angrily, whirling to face her. “What’s going on here?”

She didn’t answer, just kept chuckling quietly in a half-hearted sort of way.

“Hey!” he grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Explain what the hell this is right now!”

She stopped laughing suddenly and yanked away from him. “Hands off,” she said irritably.

“What. Is. Going. On.”

“Hmm…” She looked around. “Well, we’re about to be attacked by a monster. Maybe more than one monster, actually. Won’t know until they show themselves.”

He frowned, still confused. “What are you talking about? Monsters?”

“Shadows,” she clarified. “They’re called Shadows. They take a lot of different shapes.”

“Shadows,” he repeated.

She nodded. “Yes. They used to show up in a different way in the past, but here time stops when they show up to attack whoever their target is. Normally people don’t notice,” she added. “Only those with the Potential are able to move around normally. I’m told it’s similar to a prior phenomenon called the 'Dark Hour', though I have no idea what that actually is so….” She shrugged. “Basically, time stops when Shadows appears.”

“So why aren’t we frozen like the rest of them?” Shun asked weakly, gesturing to the frozen cars and pedestrians. “Why can we still move around?”

“I’m a Persona user.” She looked at him seriously. “And it seems you are, too.”

“…Persona?”

She opened her mouth to answer, and then stopped, hearing a sound. She spun around. “Here they come!”

“What?” He whirled around, and saw three large blobs of black lurching towards them. “ _Those_ are Shadows?!”

“They’ll show their true forms once they get closer,” she informed him.

“What do you mean, ‘true form’?!” This was without a doubt the most confusing conversation of his life.

Before Riko could answer, the Shadows did it for him, morphing into new shapes. Eventually, they resembled large lions covered in spikes.

“That’s new,” Riko observed. “I’ve never seen a type like this before.”

“ _This sort of thing is normal for you?!”_

“Remember how I said that I couldn’t tell you why I needed to find that person?” she asked offhandedly, taking a couple steps forward. “This is the reason.”

He stared at her.

“I’m not lying,” she said, glaring at him. “Now, you’re useless without your Persona. Since you obviously have no idea how to summon it, just stay out of the way.”

“Stay out of the--!” He felt a surge of irritation. “Just who do you think you are?!”

But the girl was ignoring him. She clapped her hands together, and suddenly energy swirled around her, coalescing in the figure of a woman; dressed in green with a gold headdress, with what seemed to be a white scarf of some sort, carrying an instrument.

“That’s…?”

“My Persona,” Riko told him. “Sarasvati.” _**Mabufu**_ , she ordered mentally. She didn’t want to shout her attacks with Shun standing right there. It would lead to a slew of new questions; besides, it would be embarrassing.

Ice crystals shattered over the Shadows, but seemed to have little effect. “Well,” she said, looking at the enemies, “that’s not good.” Suddenly one of the Shadows lunged at her. She leapt to the side, only to be swatted down by one of the other Shadows. She crashed into the hard pavement, skinning her elbow.

_Shit_. She rolled, barely dodging the next paw that slammed down. She made to stand, and discovered that she’d been effectively boxed in by two of the three shadows. The third was going after Shun.

“Hurry up and run!” she shouted, feeling oddly panicked. It was one thing for her to get killed by Shadows; it was another thing entirely for someone else to get dragged down with her. She'd known the risks going in, more or less. Shun was innocent, and didn't deserve to pay for her carelessness. “ _ **Run!**_ ”

Shun however, seemed to stuck in place, too scared to move.

“Wakahisa-san!” she yelled, narrowly avoiding a clawing to the face. “ _Shun!_ ”

He jumped slightly, startled, and looked at her. Then he looked at the Shadow coming after him.

She shouted something as the Shadow leapt at him, but it was drowned out by a sudden blasting sound. The sound was accompanied by a bright flash of light, and she shut her eyes to avoid being blinded.

When she opened them, all she could do was gawk.

Shun had summoned his Persona. It seemed to be a large man, dressed simply, with some sort of horned helmet, carrying a large hammer.

“Thor,” Shun whispered, barely loud enough for her to hear.

Suddenly Thor slammed his hammer down on the attacking Shadow, and it dissolved in nothingness.

It was then that Riko remembered that _she_ was about to be killed by two very volatile Shadows. She moved to clap her hands together, but before she could summon Saravati, two blasts of lightning came from the sky and obliterated the Shadows.

She turned to look at Shun. He gave her a weak smile, and then collapsed. She ran to his side, and noticed that sometime during the fight he’d gotten injured. Badly injured, if the bloodstains seeping through his shirt were any indication. And she wasn't doing much better herself. For all that her elbow was the most painful injury, the deep gash across her shoulders from where she'd been clawed and slammed into the ground was likely the more serious injury, the pain likely masked only by the shock her body was going into.

_Well, that’s just super. We’re both injured and exhausted. What a lovely day this turned out to be._ Unfortunately, no amount of her dry humor was going to help heal them. And she needed to hurry and do something before time returned to normal. Otherwise someone was bound to notice that two people who’d been walking by normally were suddenly on the ground bleeding. No one was _that_ oblivious. She bit her lip. _Help…Please….I need help._ She clenched her fists. _Help._ Nothing. Overcome with frustration, she slammed her fist into the ground, and suddenly there was another bright flash.

And then nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was Chapter 2, revised and edited and whatnot. 
> 
> I'm pleased with how it turned out, and I hope you guys are, too.  
> For those of you who are new to the fic (or are reading this on Archive, where I, for whatever reason, never posted anything beyond the first chapter) and are wondering 'revised? new version? what's she talking about?', the original version of this chapter was a little choppy in places, and Shun's behavior was a little.... inconsistent, I guess you could say? But in any case, I went back through and fixed things up, and I hope you like it. 
> 
> Also, a few little things changed, like the order of the list of names Igor gave to Riko; this is significant only in the sense that the original order of the list did not match with the plotline I later mapped out. I discovered this itty bitty error while re-reading the old/original chapters, went “Whoopsie” and decided it was finally time to do a mini-overhaul on the whole story. Hence the shiny new revised chapters I am now posting in place of the old ones. XD 
> 
> In any case, kindly review and let me know what you think. Feedback is always appreciated. :D


	3. {Fight or Flight}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I present to you Chapter 3 of Path of Discovery. :D The first completely new chapter for this story that I've posted here on AO3 in quite some time! I'm so excited~
> 
> And it's the chapter we've all been waiting for: actual canon characters (other than Igor) appearing in the story! Yay!

She opened her eyes slowly, like someone waking up too early from a deep sleep. Her vision was blurred. She closed her eyes again, intending to drift back to sleep. She was so, _so_ tired...

"You do not have time to rest, I'm afraid," a familiar voice said. "And I cannot keep you here much longer. There is work to be done."

She bolted upright, and saw Igor.

"Ah," he said with a smile. "You are awake."

"What…?" She looked around, and saw Shun on the ground beside her, unconscious but seemingly unharmed. Memories of the recent battle came flashing back and she frantically reached over and patted Shun's chest, checking for the injuries she'd been so sure he had.

"He is fine," Igor assured her.

"But…" she frowned. "He was injured. We both were. I…" She looked at her elbow reflexively, and then gasped.

The injury was gone. Twisting around to get a glimpse of her shoulders and back, she saw that those wounds had disappeared as well. "But...how?"

"You have awoken a new Persona," Igor informed her. "Normally those with the Potential only possess one Persona at a time. There are also those rare few with the Wild Card ability, who can possess many. You are somewhere in between."

"I have…a second Persona?"

He nodded. "Titania. It was with her powers that you healed yourself and your companion." He looked at Shun. "He is a Persona user as well. Good day to you," Igor added as Shun opened his eyes drowsily. "I am glad that you are finally awake."

Shun sat up suddenly, looking alarmed.

"It's alright," Riko assured him. "We're safe here. This is Igor," she added, pointing to the 'man' in question.

"Welcome to the Velvet Room," Igor said, bowing.

"Uh…thanks," Shun said, still looking suspicious.

Igor smiled, and then turned to Riko, his expression becoming serious. "I must send you on ahead, Miss Riko. You shall arrive at the current location of Ulala Serizawa. I must explain the current situation to your friend, and it will take a little time. As you know, time is of the essence in this matter."

She nodded, and stood. "I understand."

"Wait, hold on a second." Shun stood up. "You're leaving me here? Alone? With him?"

"He won't hurt you," Riko promised. "He's just going to explain what's going on. I'd do it myself, but Igor's way better at that sort of thing. Besides, I need to meet with Serizawa-san as soon as possible. "

"And, what? He can just…send you to where she is?"

She nodded. "The Velvet Room is a sort of limbo place. It's hard to explain, but in our case, Igor can cause doors to manifest where we need them. It allows us to enter the Velvet Room when we need it, and exit to somewhere else if we need to be there."

He shook his head. "This is all a bit much…" His facial expression indicated that he was stuck somewhere between shock and disbelief, with a hefty dose of extreme confusion thrown in.

"Igor will explain it properly," she said, feeling guilty for dragging him into this mess and ditching him almost immediately. "I'll see you again later, I promise, but for now I really need to go. There's no time to waste." She turned to Igor. "Right?"

He nodded. "Yes." He waved his hand, and a blue door appeared a short distance away. "If you would."

She walked forward and opened the door. She couldn't see the other side, just a bright light. She stepped through anyway.

And out onto a sidewalk in a place she didn't recognize.

She looked around. _Yep. No clue where I am._ She sighed and started walking. Maybe she could find a payphone or something; she'd forgotten her cell phone at home, having been too distracted this morning to remember to pick it up on her way out.

She hadn't gone more than ten steps when she crashed into another person, knocking them both over.

"Hey! Watch where you're going, dammit!" The other woman glared at her from underneath bright red-pink hair.

"S-sorry," Riko managed, still catching her breath.

"Hmph." The woman stood up. "You should watch where you're walking."

"I'm sorry, I…" Riko stared up at the woman. _No. It couldn't be...Could it?_ "Serizawa-san?"

The woman blinked. "Have we met?"

Riko shook her head, standing. "No, we haven't. But I've been looking for you."

Ulala tilted her head. "You're the one?"

Riko blinked, momentarily baffled. "One what?"

"Bao and I got wind of someone investigating me the other day, but we couldn't find out who. It was you?"

Riko took a step back, suddenly wary. She had not expected to...be expected. That someone on the list might know she was coming before she found them had honestly never occurred to her. "Sort of. Look, can we talk somewhere private?"

Ulala snorted. "No way. I don't know who the hell you are; you look like a nice enough kid, but I'm not going anywhere alone with you."

"Ulala," a man's voice called.

The woman turned to look over her shoulder, and Riko saw a well-dressed man with long dark hair and round tinted glasses.

"Something wrong?" the man asked.

"Found the person who was investigating me," Ulala answered.

The man turned towards her. "This kid? You're not serious."

Ulala shrugged. "She said she's been looking for me. Oh, this is my partner," she added to Riko.

"Baofu," the man said.

Riko blinked, surprised. " _You're_ Baofu?" Well, that took care of one more name on her list.

"You know me?"

"Uh….no." _This is getting awkward._

Ulala and Baofu exchanged a look.

"Who exactly are you, kid?" Baofu asked.

Riko crossed her arms, trying and failing to not look or feel defensive. "Do you know someone called Tatsuya?"

The two exchanged another look, this one more serious. "Do you?"

"Not yet. But I need to find him."

"Why?" Ulala asked, taking a step towards her. "Who are you to him?"

Riko just glared at the two of them, feeling cornered and not liking it. "Can you tell me where he is or can't you? I'm in a hurry."

"Sure thing," Ulala said easily. "Just tell us who the hell you are and why you need to find him."

Riko turned her back on them and started walking away. Which was unbelievably stupid and she knew it. She'd been agonizing over how to find these people, had nearly died getting here, had nearly gotten Shun killed in the process, and now she was going in the opposite direction. But she was feeling all sorts of off-kilter today, and an escalating confrontation with two complete strangers was not something she was terribly keen on, no matter how important they were to Igor.

Besides, she and Shun could always track them down again later, right? And surely it wouldn't be too hard, since they'd already found them, or at least Serizawa, once.

If she could just get some distance for now, catch her breath after that battle she and Shun had been in, get a little time to get her head on straight...

"Hold on a minute!" Baofu grabbed her arm. "You don't get to just take off like that. Explain yourself."

Her sudden anxiety spiked into something sharp and painful, an explosion of emotion in her chest, which in turn triggered the fight-or-flight response every living creature has. "Let _go_!" She yanked her arm away and then ran off down the street before either one of them could grab her again.

She _hated_ being manhandled like that, by anyone. Didn't like to be touched at all anymore, really, despite having been something of a hugger once upon a time. Of course, once upon a time she would have likely leaned toward the 'fight' response to such a situation, rather than 'flight'. But she'd been down that road before a year ago, and it had brought her nothing but pain. And she'd learned her lesson: sometimes fighting brought nothing but disaster and tragedy. So she'd fight if she had to, and certainly wouldn't back down if it mattered, but if given the option of fleeing instead? She'd take it, hands down, no contest.

That being said...running off clearly was not the best idea she'd ever had, something that became glaringly obvious once she stopped for breath several blocks away. Not only was she supposed to be explaining the situation to those people, she was in the middle of a district she didn't know. She also had no idea where she was relative to where Igor had dropped her off, meaning even if he'd left the door behind for her, she couldn't get back because she didn't know where it was. _I'm_ _ **such**_ _an idiot. And so,_ _ **so**_ _screwed._

She looked around, and by some stroke of luck saw a motel across the street. She quickly crossed the street and checked into a room for the night, managing to cover the fee with what money she had left in her wallet. Hopefully, she'd be able to either find those two again tomorrow, or at least find her way back to a part of the city she was more familiar with and start over again from there.

She flopped down onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling, exhausted but unable to fall asleep. _I wonder where Shun is…_

He hadn't appeared during her confrontation with Ulala and Baofu; she hadn't seen him since the Velvet Room. Either Igor's explanation was taking a really long time or something else had happened. _Maybe Igor sent him to look for someone else on the list?_ But…that wasn't right. Igor had said that he was 'sending her ahead'. Which implied that he'd be sending Shun after her. So where was he? It bothered her that he wasn't here with her, though she knew it shouldn't have mattered so much; she'd just met the guy, for cryin' out loud.

Still, she missed him.

She turned on her side and stared at the blank TV screen. Feeling suffocated by the oppressive silence in the room, she grabbed the remote from the nightstand and turned it on to the local news.

She fell asleep listening to the weather forecast for next day.

* * *

Shun exited the door and ended up (according to Igor) exactly where Riko had emerged. Riko, however, was nowhere to be seen, and neither was their target, Ulala Serizawa. _Was Igor mistaken? Did he send me to the wrong place?_

He stood there for several minutes, but neither one came by. Eventually he gave up on waiting and started asking people if they'd seen Riko. Logically, he knew that asking if anyone had seen the Serizwa woman would be easier; with her outlandish appearance, she'd be much more memorable to an average person compared to Riko, who at first glance seemed to be just an average young woman. But he and logic weren't really on solid terms at the moment, and his priority was Riko. She'd said herself that this wasn't a part of the city she was familiar with; a young woman alone in a strange place was not something to be taken lightly.

So he badgered every other person he could get to listen, trying to figure out where Riko had gone.

"Excuse me, I was wondering if you could help me? My friend and I were separated, and I think she may be lost. Have you seen her? She's around 5' 5", with really short black hair and green eyes; she was wearing a black hooded jacket and jeans."

He was told 'I'm sorry, I haven't seen her' more times than he could count.

He stood in the middle of the sidewalk alone, feeling extremely lost and afraid, though the fear wasn't for himself. _Where is she?_

* * *

Riko woke up the next morning as the bedside alarm clock starting blaring a pop song. She rolled over and smacked the off button. The clock read _8:00_. She sat up, running a hand through her short hair.

 _I need to find Serizawa-san_ , she realized. She felt a wave of dread wash over her; it was very likely that a second meeting would go no better than the first. Nevertheless, she had an obligation to fulfill her assigned task. She stood up and checked over her appearance in the large vanity mirror on the wall. She'd taken her hoodie off, but otherwise had slept with all her clothes on. What choice had she had, really? It wasn't like she walked around carrying her pajamas. She hadn't exactly planned on spending the night in a motel.

She tugged her t-shirt straight and moved to grab her jacket off the dresser when someone knocked on her motel room door. She froze. Who could it be? No one knew she was here, not even Shun, and this motel didn't have a maid service. Could Shun have tracked her down? He was one of the best investigators in the city; she supposed it wouldn't be too hard for him to find her if he really wanted.

A little warning bell went off in her head, but she was too eager to see a familiar face to pay the apprehensive feeling as much attention as she should have.

"Coming," she called, shrugging on her jacket and going over to open the door.

It swung open to reveal Baofu, Ulala, and a third man she didn't recognize who was wearing a dress shirt and a tie, as well as rectangular tinted glasses. _Ah. Crap._ She took a step back, already not liking how this day was going.

"Hi there," Ulala said, "Remember us?"

Riko crossed her arms. "Yeah. How'd you find me?"

Baofu snorted. "We find people for a living, kid."

"It wasn't hard," Ulala said. "We just asked around a bit. It helps when you're friends with a cop," she added, pointing to the man with the tie.

"Cop?" she repeated. _Double crap._

"Detective Suou," the man in question replied. "And you're…Riko Yukimura, correct? That's what the motel roster says, at any rate. You have a record," he added.

 _Detective Suou? 'Suou' as in Katsuya?_ Well, her list-people were just popping out of nowhere now. And since he was a cop, a detective on top of that, he'd had the access to pull her record. Which he'd apparently done. _This just keeps on gets getting better and better_ , she thought sarcastically. "What of it?" she demanded.

"Yukimura, Riko," Katsuya said, pulling out a manila folder. "Was an informant against gang activity approximately one year ago. Later implicated to have actually been working with the gang at some point. Details were never found, and the case was dropped, although the situation was used as the grounds for a restraining order against you by the Hamasaki family. According to your academic records, you were an exemplary student until about a month or two before this incident, at which point your grades began to drop. You stopped attending school after the incident, and never finished out your studies." He closed the folder and looked at her. "And that's just the overview. Quite an interesting record for someone who's only nineteen."

She reached out and grabbed the folder from him.

"Hey!" Ulala reached for her wrist but Riko took another step back and tossed the folder over her shoulder. It landed on the floor, several pieces of paper sliding out.

"My record is irrelevant," she said, trying to keep her tone of voice even and unemotional.

Baofu shook his head. "Not to us it isn't. You came looking for one of us and we had no idea who _you_ were."

"So we did some digging," Ulala said cheerfully, then looked serious again. "Now, tell us, what do you want with me?"

Riko looked at the three people in front of her, feeling decidedly boxed in and trapped. She _hated_ feeling trapped. It went hand in hand with being grabbed on her list of 'Things Most Disliked'. She resisted the urge to take another step back and instead shoved past them and out into the parking lot.

"Hold on a minute!" Baofu grabbed her wrist. "We're not done here."

She barely suppressed the urge to kick him, and worked to keep her voice calm. "Can you let go of my arm, please?" she asked, trying to be civil. She would have _already_ kicked him, but the fact remained that she couldn't afford to run away from these people a second time; Igor wanted them brought in, and he'd given her the job of bringing them, whether she liked it or not.

"Not until you explain yourself."

"Get your hands off of her!" a new voice shouted.

Riko turned her head to see Shun approaching them, looking angry.

"Get away from her," Shun repeated, coming up beside Riko and tugging Baofu's hand away. "She doesn't like being touched."

Riko marveled at Shun's observational skills. She'd only known him for two days, and he'd already picked up on one of her...quirks. It was all the more impressive since it wasn't a trait she'd really displayed much during the times they'd been together; in fact, the only examples she could think of for him to be basing his assumptions on were when he'd offered her a hand up onto the bus coming here (which she'd refused), and when she'd expressed a general dislike for the excessively cramped quarters on said bus after a standing passenger had lost his grip on the overhead railing and had toppled into her. She only had a moment to look at him admiringly though, because the next thing that happened was time freezing.

Curiously, the three older adults didn't seem to notice. They also didn't freeze.

"Are you going to tell us who you people are or not?" Ulala demanded, seemingly oblivious to the stillness.

"Uh…" Shun glanced at Riko. "Is this normal? I thought pretty much everyone is frozen during these things."

Riko bit her lip. "I guess they're like us?" She shrugged. "But they seem kind of useless," she added, smirking.

Ulala grabbed her by the collar. "Care to repeat that?!"

"Let her go!" Shun lunged forward to help Riko, but she waved him off. She disliked the manhandling, but an imminent battle with Shadows ranked higher than her (admittedly massive) personal space issues.

"We've got bigger problems," she told the three adults (for whatever reason, she couldn't seem to think of herself or Shun as 'adults'; maybe it was because she didn't consider herself to be one, and Shun just didn't give off the grown-up vibe, especially dressed in his loose turtleneck and jeans). "They're coming."

Ulala frowned, confused, and released her. "Who's coming?"

"Shadows." Riko heard a slithering sound somewhere in the parking lot, amongst the cars.

"What are Shadows?" Katsuya asked.

"That's sort of a long story," Riko glanced at Shun, not entirely sure how he was feeling about all of this. "You ready?"

"Yeah." He shot another look at the other three. "What about them?"

She shrugged. "What about 'em? We were supposed to find them, we found them. Once this battle's over we can explain and ask them where Tatsuya is."

"That's another thing," Katsuya said suddenly, somehow looking even more intense than he had a moment before. "Why are you looking for my brother?"

She blinked. _Well, that's unexpected._ "Your brother?"

"Tatsuya is my younger brother."

She looked over at Shun and he shrugged. "I didn't know," he told her. "I only had the information on Serizawa."

"Igor didn't mention it either…" She frowned. She was going to have a little chat with Igor next time she saw him, one involving her fist meeting his freakishly long nose. She was noticing a pattern of withheld information on his part, and she was not liking it at all.

"Igor?" Ulala repeated. "How do you know Igor?"

"You've been to the Velvet Room?" Baofu added.

Riko rolled her eyes. "And suddenly they're interested."

Katsuya stepped forward suddenly and grabbed her by the elbow. "What do you want with my brother?!"

"Why does everyone keep grabbing me lately?!" she demanded angrily, then tensed as the slithering sound got closer. "By the way," she said slowly, "does anything here seem strange to you?"

Katsuya frowned. "Strange?"

"The cars aren't moving?" she suggested mildly.

"They're parked," the detective responded flatly.

She _barely_ refrained from rolling her eyes again. "The ones in the street, too?"

Baofu, Ulala, and Katsuya all turned their heads to look at the no longer moving traffic.

"What the hell's going on here?" Ulala demanded. "Who are you two?"

"I think the more important question right now is 'what is that?'" Baofu said blandly, pointing to what seemed to be a ten-foot long snake-creature now slithering across the top of a parked station wagon.

"I already told you," Riko said, wishing for the hundredth time that she had some sort of _real_ weapon. "They're called Shadows."

The Shadow moved to lunge at them. Riko shoved away from Katsuya, and clapped her hands together. "Sarasvati!"

Her Persona appeared and Riko pointed to the attacking Shadow. _**Bufula.**_

The ice attack slammed into the Shadow, stunning it temporarily.

Ulala stared. "That's…"

"A Persona," Katsuya finished, looking equally shocked.

"Riko!" Shun shouted. "Two more coming!"

"Stall them while I finish this one off!"

"You got it!" He turned back to face two more snake-shaped Shadows, though these ones were a different color from the one Riko was fighting. "Thor!" _**Mazio.**_

The Shadows took some damage, but not enough to stop them for long. "They're resistant to electricity," he called to Riko.

She finished off the Shadow she was fighting and rushed to his side. "Let's see how they like ice, then." _**Mabufu.**_

Her attacked bounced off, and rebounded right back at her. Luckily, she was immune to ice attacks so the rebound had no effect. But still…

"What the hell was that?!" she shouted angrily.

"I guess we're going to have to try something else," Shun said grimly. "Any ideas?"

' _You have awoken a new Persona.'_

' _ **I have… a second Persona?'**_

What the hell. Might as well give it a shot.

She clapped her hands together again. "Titania!"

A fairy woman wearing a green dress appeared. _**Gale Slash**_ , she ordered.

Titania responded, sending arcs of wind at the Shadows. They took severe damage, and dissolved.

"Good job," Shun said appreciatively.

"Thanks," she replied.

"…two Personas?" Ulala said in disbelief. "You've gotta be kidding me…"

Before Riko could answer, time restarted itself, and everything that had become frozen started moving again.

"Care to explain what's happening here?" Katsuya said, looking serious.

"Explanations are Igor's thing," Riko responded. _Even though he never tells you the whole story._ She looked around, and noticed that a door leading to the motel laundry room had transformed into a blue door that would take them to the Velvet Room. "Let's go."

"Wait, where'd that door come from?" Ulala asked, confused. "I swear that was just…"

"Igor," Riko and Shun said in unison. "This is his way of saying to bring you guys to see him," Riko added.

She led the way to the door and opened it. "Let's go." She stepped through, followed by the others. After a flash of white light, they all emerged into the Velvet Room.

"It's been a while since we were in this place…" Baofu muttered. "Looks a little different this time around…"

Ulala nodded. "Mm-hmm."

"Welcome back to the Velvet Room," Igor greeted them.

"Igor," Katsuya responded, nodding. "It's been a while."

"Indeed it has," Igor agreed.

"Why are we here?" Ulala asked. "And why is that Riko girl looking for Little Suou?"

Igor looked over at Riko. "You did not tell them?"

She crossed her arms. "We were attacked by Shadows; I didn't have a chance to explain everything."

Igor sighed, and then turned to the three adults. "I apologize for any confusion. I will try to explain the situation as best I can."

"That would be much appreciated," Katsuya said.

Igor sat down at a small table that was covered in what seemed to be Tarot cards. "Please excuse the mess," he said apologetically, causing the cards to vanish with a wave of his hand. "My most recent guest was just here a moment ago."

"It's fine," Baofu said. "Just tell us what's going on."

Igor nodded. "Very well." He cleared his throat. "As you know Tatsuya Suou, Eikichi Mishina, Lisa Silverman, and Jun Kurosu all relinquished their memories of their adventures together. Currently, there is a situation brewing that requires their involvement. For that, their memories must be restored."

"Hold on," Katsuya said, frowning, "I thought it was dangerous for them to remember? That the world would be destroyed if they recalled any of it."

Igor nodded. "That was indeed the case. But no longer."

Ulala looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"Enough time has passed so that remembering the events of the past no longer poses any threat to this world," Igor explained patiently. "Regaining their memories will not do any harm."

"You said that there's no danger to the world from this," Katsuya interrupted. "What about them? Will Tatsuya or the others get hurt by remembering?"

Igor shook his head. "No. They will not be harmed by this. May I continue?"

Katsuya flushed slightly, but nodded. "Please."

"I have entrusted this task to Riko. She possesses the ability to restore the memories that have been lost."

They all turned to look at her now, and she put her hands on her hips and stared back defiantly. "What?"

Igor cleared his throat again and they turned back to him.

"As I was saying, I have entrusted this task to Riko. To assist her in her search, I provided her with a short list of names." He gestured to Riko and she pulled out the crumpled piece of paper. "As you can see, it has your names, as well as the names of those yet to be located." He handed the piece of paper back to her. "Now, regarding your Personas…"

"We haven't used them since Tatsuya lost his memories," Katsuya said. "But we should still be able to use them the same as before, right?"

Igor shook his head. "No."

Baofu raised an eyebrow. "No? Why not?"

"Your Personas have changed," Igor informed them. "Which is to be expected. After all, in the time that has passed have you yourselves not changed? And since a Persona is simply a reflection of its user, it is not surprising that your Personas are not what they were previously."

"So…" Ulala frowned. "What are they now?"

"Yours, Ulala Serizawa, is High Pixie." He turned to the others. "Yours, Baofu, is Attis. And yours, Katsuya Suou, is Melchizedek."

"What about Tatsuya and the others?" Katsuya asked. "Will their Personas be different as well?"

Igor nodded. "Yes. But I will not know what their Personas are until they are brought here, to the Velvet Room." He turned back to Riko. "You must hurry," he told her solemnly.

She nodded. "I know. Only three months left, right?"

"Three months until what?" Ulala asked.

"I am sorry," Igor said apologetically, "but until the remaining people on the list are gathered, I cannot divulge all the information regarding the situation."

Baofu turned to Riko. "Who else is on the list?"

"The main four, plus someone named Maya," she answered.

"Amano-san?" Katsuya asked.

"Yeah. You know her?"

He flushed. "Yes. She fought alongside us the last time."

"Miss Riko," Igor said pointedly. "Time is of the essence."

"Ah, right." She bowed to Igor. "Sorry." She turned to Katsuya. "I really need to know where your brother is."

The detective nodded. "He should be at home. I'll take you there."

"We're coming, too!" Ulala announced, linking arms with Baofu and smiling brightly.

Riko looked over at Shun, uncertain of where they stood. "And you?"

He snorted. "You're kidding, right? I spent most of yesterday looking for you, including during the night. You couldn't _pay_ me to go away now that I've finally found you again."

"Even though you could use the money?" she teased, though secretly her heart felt warmed by the revelation that he'd spent all the time since they'd been separated looking for her.

He rolled his eyes. "Let's go."

She chuckled and followed him out the door, with Katsuya, Baofu, and Ulala right behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Well, how was it? Please review and let me know what you think. :D
> 
> Oh, and in case anyone's wondering, I changed the Personas of the original P2 cast both for the reason mentioned in the story (the characters themselves have changed, and as we've seen before, like in P3, when there's a big enough change in the person, their Persona also transforms) and because I haven't played P2, and I don't know what attacks those original Personas use. I know the ever-wonderful internet could tell me, but...yeah. XD I'm pretty much staying with the characters' original Arcana, though, with the exception of Ulala. And in case anyone's up in arms about her new Persona being High Pixie...relax. Her Persona's going to be upgraded, so to speak, later on in the story. The transition from High Pixie to her new Persona is going to be a plot point, so for now just bear with me, okay?
> 
> Anyhow, odds are we'll be running into Tatsuya in the next chapter. Which is going to be loads of fun, I'm sure. ;D
> 
> Anywa, if you guys feel like sharing your thoughts on the story so far, I'd appreciate it. :) Feedback makes me happy. What do you think of Riko? What do you think of Shun? Is anyone too OOC? (As previously mentioned, I hadn't played either of the P2 games back when I was writing this, so my characterizations may be slightly off.) Let me know what you think! :)

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So…that's the new and polished version. Mostly the same, but I've edited and expanded some bits here and there. Hopefully the changes are good, and don't negatively impact the overall story. XD
> 
> Now, you ready for my obnoxiously long rant about how this story got started?
> 
> Basically…I haven’t played Innocent Sin or Eternal Punishment , but I’ve read about them, read a couple scripts, and seen the trailers for the PSP remakes (though from what I hear, they’re more of ports with updated art XD) and I’m planning to play them eventually (likely when I’m no longer broke and can afford to buy them. XD). 
> 
> In any case, I find myself really liking the characters from both P2 games, so this story will likely have…almost everyone. :D Also, while I (mostly) understand the whole Tatsuya-memory-loss/two-Tatsuyas thing, I…don’t like it very much. XD. It makes me sad how he had to give up all his friendships, so I figured…let’s come back in a couple years, after everything has settled down a little. So, this story takes place…hmm…sort of during P4, actually. It probably won’t have any P4 characters in it, though. Or at least not until much later. But I’m planning to include Elizabeth and her quest to get the protagonist(s) from P3 free from the Seal and stuff, although that will, again, come much later on in the plot. 
> 
> Anyhow, it’ll all be made clear in the story. Eventually. XD
> 
> I’m so excited~ Oh, and just to make it (somewhat) clear, Riko’s Persona(s), and the Personas of any other OCs that may come in later, come mostly from P3 (I’ve played FES *cheers*), since I know some of those Personas pretty well. I finally played (and loved) P4 but I'm still more familiar with the Personas of P3 (my only notable exception being Loki, simply because I love his P4 design; wicked awesome, people. Wicked awesome). And all Shadows are just the products of my overactive imagination, though occasionally based on those in P3. XD
> 
> So…..review, please! Reviews really do mean the world to me, and even something as simply as a smiley face will be sufficient encouragement to continue on with this story. :D (Or do whatever the Archive equivalent is. Leave a comment? :D).
> 
> Also, for anyone who cares: this story is, as I may have mentioned before, also posted on FF.net, and will probably be updated with slightly more frequency there compared to here. Just FYI. XD


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